Indian Princely States - Jammu & Kashmir A Selection from the Dan Walker Collection June 12, 2018

21 SG 70 to 73 (June 1877 to 1878, ½ anna and 1 anna red (shades) in in oil colour on native paper While the earliest record for these stamps appears to be July 4th, 1877 Sefi andMortimer believed they were issued in June. The writer has examples of the ½ anna in every month from July 1877 to January 1878, during which period there can be little doubt these stamps formed the normal issue, though copies are known used in February and April 1878 and even later; their use after mid-January 1878 was abnormal. The paper shows the usual variations but frequently in the brown/red shade caused by too much oil in the colour makeup; the paper is also toned by the oil. Most of these stamps show very indifferent impressions, sometimes so little of the design can be seen, that the 1 anna can on occasion be identified by margins; however, there are quite clear prints in the early printings. Complete sheets of four are a rarity, used are much more common than unused, and the ½ anna is much more frequently found than the 1 anna. The brown-red shade is not a deliberate shade but it occurs more frequently in the later printings. Very occasionally the red tends toward vermilion but such examples are rare. At this point it should he mentioned that printings on the experimental paper were all in red; and used copies, strange as it may seem, are known only between June and October 1877. It is more logical, however, to consider first the other printings on native paper even though they appear later. SG 74 and 75 (January 1878, ½ anna and 1 anna black in oil colour on native paper) This is a true black. The oil colour was very unsuitable and little of the designmay be seen. II should be emphasized that these stamps are in a true black and of very considerable rarity, the recorded dates of use being only from 16 to 20 January 1878. The writer is unable in record any unused copies of either value. SG 76 and 77 (January 1878, ½ anna and 1 anna slate (deep) blue-black in oil colour on native paper) The shade of this stamp, while close to the preceding, always shows a bluish tinge. The colour, as given above, seems more appropriate than “steel blue/black” of Sell and Mortimer. If anything the impressions are even more heavily blurred, the colour standing out on the surface. For this reason no example of the 1 anna is known for certain; neither denomination has been found unused. The dates are extremely close to that of the previous issue, only the 17th, 19th, and 20th of January being known. This is the last printing of the Jammu old rectangulars. SG 79 and 80 (October 1877, ½ and 1 anna red in oil colour on thick wove paper) Examples are rare, though somewhat less so than the preceding (native paper). Both denominations (½ and 1 anna) are known used, but neither unused. The paper now described for the first time, which is the only wove variety known to have been used for any oil-rectangular, is not known to have been employed for the oil-circulars; it is abundantly distinct, by its whiteness and fine texture, from the coarse “sugar-wove” which was used for circulars, some six months later, In April 1878. No rectangular is known on the latter paper. The dates in October lie between the 6th and 27th inclusive, a period of no more than three weeks, yet probably longer than more than one of the laid papers, and suggesting a somewhat larger printing. This wove paper may be Identical with some of that employed for the New Rectangulars. This brings us to the end of a remarkable series of emergency printings, as far as these were made in red and on European papers. There can be no doubt whatever but that all of them were undertaken for some definite reason, and that they were legitimately issued and used. Further printings, occurred after October 1877, but in order to keep as nearly as possible to our chronological sequence, we insert here a stamp which should, otherwise not be included with the oil-rectangulars at all. SG 86 (September 1877, provisional seal obliterator of Jammu, handstamped in rose-red watercolour on pieces of native paper and used as a ½ anna stamp) No explanation has yet been offered for the production of this extraordinary stamp, with its sudden reversion to native paper and watercolour printing. We think that this can now be given (written in 1937). The rose-red impressions and their subsequent obliterations in black are both from the “square seal” (iron mine) obliterator of Jammu. In the first instance it was Stuart Godfrey who noticed any abnormal use of this obliterator, he having found covers which, though bearing no stamps, had been franked to their destination by the mere impression, in black, of the obliterator on the cover. We have found covers similarly franked by the application, also In black, of one of the small circular seals.